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Friday, 12 April 2013

I want to defend
the ‘Ding-dong Thatcher’s gone’ street parties and celebrations that have
erupted in various towns and cities. Those in the Labour party and the ‘liberal
left’ who criticise them for being ghoulish, sick, disrespectful and so on
entirely miss the point. I want to argue they are not only necessary but a
healthy reaction to the solemn media spectacle about to unfold. This spectacle,
with its measured ceremonial and invocation of the armed might of the state, will
strive to create myths, manufacture our consent, and set limits on the dialogue
we are allowed to have about Thatcher, who she was and what she meant.

Thatcher’s
death marks an ending of sorts. It is a truism that, as she said, her greatest accomplishment was Tony Blair and
New Labour. I don’t want here to reiterate this problematic. One of the
grisliest political photographs I have ever seen was of the wretched Brown
posing with her outside Number 10.

Claims that she
‘saved’ the economy are incomprehensible. Her destruction of manufacturing and the
shift to a ‘financialised’ economy via the ‘Big Bang’ and bank deregulation hugely
facilitated the pursuit of debt-driven growth, all of which hastened the crash.
It is also arguable that the weakening of the unions’ bargaining muscle in
Britain was the crucial factor which kept down wages, so that cheap, easy
credit – debt, actually – flowed in to fill the gap. Combine this with an acute
shortage of affordable housing (a consequence of her Right-to-Buy schemes) and
you create the conditions for the out-of-control housing market and then in the
US the sub-prime mortgage collapse which was the trigger for global recession.

So please
don’t claim Thatcher ‘saved’ the economy: quite the contrary. What she achieved
was the artificial stimulation of financial ‘bubbles’ which eventually
imploded. In addition, the neoliberal shift, which she pioneered, has made the
world economy hugely more vulnerable to shocks. But Thatcher’s real
achievement, (apart from New Labour) was to restructure British society in the
interests of the rich and powerful, so that an increasingly small amount went
into the ‘social wage’ and much huger amounts into the pockets of the already
very rich.

The
polarisation which her funeral is creating is a class polarisation. The British
ruling class understands this very well. But it owes her much, which is why it
is pushing ahead with what is to all intents and purposes a state funeral. It
understands the power of symbolism and ceremonial, but it also knows it is
entering a period of potentially profound social conflict. It is attempting to
use the symbolism of national unity to disguise the havoc it intends to wreak
on working-class communities. This is a high-risk strategy which can easily
backfire. The Telegraph has expressed its unease that the ceremonial of the
state is being hijacked by the Tory party.

The problem
faced by those Tories who wish to establish the Thatchercult is the
inconvenient truth about the sheer number of people who have suffered at her
hands. The focus of most professional politicians and media outlets on London
and the South-East means that the thousands of ex-miners and their families - the ‘enemy within’ - have been forgotten.
As have the millions of manufacturing workers, printers, steelworkers and many
others, thrown on the dole. And the Irish republicans who supported Bobby Sands
and the hunger strikers when Thatcher denied them political status. And the
black communities of Brixton and Toxteth which went up in flames in 1981
against her racist policing. And the gay and lesbian people who had seen the
odious Section 28 drive gay awareness out of the education system, legitimising
homophobia.

The fact is,
among ordinary working people, Thatcher made life worse for so many that it is
futile for the British establishment to try to pretend otherwise. One of the
most heartening things about the street parties in Brixton, Glasgow and
everywhere else was the sight of so many young people there, dancing and
popping champagne corks . It is good to see radicals and socialists acting as
the memory of the class. My son spent his early years yelling ‘Maggie Maggie
Maggie Out Out Out’ often while sitting
on my shoulders on a variety of anti-government demonstrations. His was the
first text I received after her death. It said simply ‘Ding Dong the Witch is
Dead’. You cannot eradicate these sorts of things from history. In the memories
of millions of people they come together to constitute almost a social force.

It was the street
parties, bursting forth in city after city, drawing outrage from the political
establishment, that made the social and political expression of these feelings
possible. I am sure that, had it not been for this, the establishment would
have had a much easier time creating the solemn monolithic hagiography around
the remains of the blessed Margaret that it wanted. It was this very visible
expression of dissent that helped give Glenda Jackson the confidence to hurl
her splendid critique of Thatcher in the teeth of the apoplexic Tory front benches.

The Tory
media-establishment needs to understand that, ultimately, the celebrations tap
into a power that is deeper than theirs. The ‘Thatcher’s Dead’ parties have
their roots in the carnivalesque. Mikhail Bakhtin‘s 'carnival' is a form that
erupts from unofficial sources, subverting the solemnity of the ‘official’ forms
of power and control. Using whatever is playful and grotesque, it turns the
world upside down, crowning jesters instead of kings. Its humour and bad taste subvert
the solemnity of ‘official’ discourse and ‘official’ politics.

When an ageing
tyrant dies and is being prepared for a solemn funeral, it cries ‘Rejoice!’ As the
nation is dragooned into mourning, it parties. As the state prepares to create
awe among the population by means of military parades, it blows a fart.The
‘Thatcher’s Dead’ parties not only express widespread popular hatred of what
Thatcher did to our society and what her heirs wish to continue and extend,
they challenge the truth of the ‘official’ media narrative and give a voice to the unheard. It remains
to be seen, as London is flooded with troops over the next few days, determined
to push through a highly contested state ceremony, to what lengths a
beleaguered British state is prepared to go to ensure its version of history
dominates.

He had a good, creative head
on him, he hated injustice and one of the things he was good at was organising
at work.

While he was there the
porters became notorious as a stroppy bunch of bastards

Who would walk out at the
drop of a hat.

And he’d be there on the picket
line, in the pre-dawn light, white coat on, drawing on his roll-up, his John
Lennon glasses (he was blind as a bat) glinting in the firelight of the brazier
(yes, brazier!) as he warmed his hands.

In fact, Maggie, you nearly
came face to face with him.

In ‘81 you were scheduled for
a visit to St Albans hospital

To open a ward which had been
built by private subscription.

John was outraged first
because it was you

And second because the ward
was being built with private money.

At risk to his own continued
employment,

He leaked the information of
your visit.

At less than a day’s notice a
reception committee was formed

And by 8am was waiting for
you at the hospital gates.

You may have been dimly aware
of hubbub

Behind police lines as your
Daimler swept into the hospital

But as you left a half-hour
later you cannot have failed to notice

The tall guy in the white
uniform, with spiky peroxide hair

And an assortment of
earrings, who broke the police line

And chased your car up the
road, waving his fist.

That was John.

In fact, his size and his hair
made him

Highly identifiable at
demos. As the miners’ strike was

Being smashed down the toilet
by your bully-boys in early ‘85

One of the London marches was
broken up by police attacks.

The national 6 O’Clock News
led off with footage of John, spiky hair bristling as he yelled ‘Scab!” at a
tentative-looking line of riot police.

But don’t get the wrong
impression. He wasn’t a headbanger.

He loved reading.

He knew his Gramsci.I never saw him once being macho
or aggressive. In fact his general politics were impeccable. He was a mine of information on reggae and ska. He once gave away all his Yellowman LPs as a protest at the artist's homophobia. At the Notting
Hill carnival while taking an unwise and probably somewhat drunken piss in a
side-street, he was robbed by a group of black teenagers who sprayed mace in
his eyes. He was interviewed by a local newspaper after leaving hospital, clearly angling for a racist rant. He gently stressed that you couldn’t possibly turn this into a racist thing. Most of the A & E staff who had taken such good care of him were also Afro-Caribbean, so how could you?

Time passedLife drifted us apart like leaves Different placesDifferent spacesDifferent lives

A couple of years ago I heard
he was dying

At 48From skin cancer.A few days before receiving the diagnosisHe'd been told he was losing his teaching jobFrom the start of next term.We spoke on the phone a couple of timesHe'd been writing constantly. He e-mailed me what he'd done.I put it up on the net.I was going to go up and see himAt the weekend.But then his sister rangTo tell me he had gone.I went up to the funeral.Sometimes, if I'm doing A public poetry readingI read the words he wroteIn those last days.

He was, in your terms, ThatcherAnd in the minds of your friends

A nobody...

A hospital porter…A trade unionist…

A teacher…

A good man

Struggling to survive in a shitty world.

But the values he espoused

Were better than the values
of you and your kind.And as you go to your graveWith all the pomp and circumstance that money can buy Surrounded by an honour-guard of hundreds of armed menJet fighters and all the paraphernalia of deathJust let me say this:We lost much, much more in John's passingThan we ever will In yours.